Mihaela Serban

Associate Professor of Law and Society

Year Joined RCNJ: 2010

Contact Information

• Phone: (201) 684-6251
• Email: mserban@ramapo.edu
• Office: G224
• Office Hours: By appointment

Education:

• Ph.D., Law and Society, New York University
• S.J.D.,  LL.M., Comparative Constitutional Law, Central European University, Hungary
• Licenta in Stiinte Juridice (Licentiate in Law), University of Bucharest School of Law, Romania
• Mihaela Serban CV August 2020

Convening Groups:

• Law and Society
• Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (minor)
• Human Rights and Genocide Studies (minor)

Founding co-editor, Ramapo Journal of Law and Society

Pre-law advisor

Courses Taught:

• Comparative Legal Systems/Global Legal Order, Contemporary Issues in Law & Society/Law, Power & Inequality, Introduction to Law and Justice, Law and Society, Law and Culture, Law and Development, Transitional Justice, Moot Court, Social Issues, Human Rights, Criminal Law, Constitutional Law, Ethics in a Global Age, Field Studies, Directed Readings, Thesis Supervision

Research Interests:

Law and society in Eastern Europe, human rights, the rule of law, transitional justice

Scholarship:

Books:

• 2019, Subverting Communism in Romania: Law and Private Property 1945-1965, Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield.
• 2003 (ed.), Constitutionalism in Transition: Africa and Eastern Europe (International Conference on Comparative Constitutionalism, May   17-20, 2001, Warsaw), Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. Constitutionalism in Transition Africa and Eastern Europe (pdf)

Journal special issues:

• 2020 (with Monica Ciobanu, eds.), Law, History and Justice in Romania, Special Issue of the Journal of Romanian Studies 2(2).

Recent articles and book chapters:

• 2020, “Litigating Identity in Fascist and Post-Fascist Romania, 1940-1945,” Journal of Romanian Studies 2(2): 81-108.
• 2020 (with Monica Ciobanu), “Law, History and Justice in Romania: New Directions in Law and Society Research,” Journal of Romanian Studies 2(2): 9-22.
• 2018, “Stemming the Tide of Illiberalism? Legal Mobilization and Adversarial Legalism in Central and Eastern Europe,” in Special Issue: Legal Change in Post-Communist States: Courts, Police and Public Administration, eds. Peter Solomon and Kaja Gadowska, Communist and Post-Communist Studies 51(3). Reprinted in Legal Change in Post-Communist States. Progress, Reversions, Explanations, eds. Peter Solomon and Kaja Gadowska, Ibidem, 2019.
• 2018, “Regime Change and Property Rights Consciousness in Post-Communist Romania,” Law & Social Inquiry 43(3):732-763. Early preview publication February 10, 2017.
• 2015, “Rule of Law Indicators as a Technology of Power in Romania,” in The Quiet Power of Indicators: Measuring Development, Corruption, and the Rule of Law, Sally Engle Merry, Kevin Davis, and Benedict Kingsbury eds., Cambridge University Press.
• 2015, “The Exceptionalism of Housing in the Ideology and Politics of Early Communist Romania (1945-1965)“, Europe-Asia Studies 67(3).
• 2014, “The Loss of Property Rights and the Construction of Legal Consciousness in Early Socialist Romania (1950-1965).” Law & Society Review 48(4).
• 2010, “Surviving Property: Resistance against Urban Housing Nationalization during the Transition to Communism (Romania, 1950-1965),” in Special Issue: Interdisciplinary Legal Studies: The Next Generation, Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 51: 29-66, ed. Austin Sarat.
• 2010, “Law from Below: Women’s Human Rights and Social Movements in New York City” (with Peggy Levitt, Sally Merry and Diana H. Yoon), Law & Society Review 44(1).
• 2009, “‘Bringing Coals to Newcastle’? Human Rights Discourses and Social Change in New York City” (with Diana H. Yoon), Global Networks 9(4): 507-528.

External sites:

Academia

Researchgate

Google Scholar profile